the star

World praises SA’s cut in HIV infection among children

0789
2011.5.23
Orlando Children's Home.
Looking for a loving home: The numbers of abandoned babies has risen dramatically since then and many are infected with the AIDS virus. This drastically reduces the child chances of being adopted in a society where very few children are adopted every year.
Picture: Cara Viereckl

Anso Thom

Health-e News Service

South Africa has received global recognition for achieving a significant reduction in the number of children newly infected with HIV.

The UN Joint Programme on HIV/Aids (UNAids) launched the 2012 Global Epidemic Report yesterday and praised South Africa for major gains, with the number of children newly infected with HIV declining by between 40 and 59 percent from 2009 to 2011.

More than 90 percent of the children who acquired HIV infection in 2011 live in sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of children newly infected fell by 24 percent from 2009 to 2011.

Sub-Saharan Africa remains most severely affected, with almost one in every 20 adults living with HIV and accounting for 69 percent of the people living with HIV worldwide.

While the world is making significant progress in coming to grips with the HIV pandemic, stigma and lack of human rights remain in many countries.

UNAids reported significant declines in new infections among adults and children, with a high number of people placed on antiretrovirals.

Still, sub-Saharan Africa has shown progress, with an estimated 1.8 million new HIV infections in 2011, compared with 2.4 million in 2001.

Between 2005 and 2011, the number of people dying from Aids-related causes in sub-Saharan Africa declined by a third, from 1.8 million to 1.2 million.

Since 2004, the number of tuberculosis-related deaths among people living with HIV has fallen by 28 percent in sub-Saharan Africa.

However, while there have been a number of victories in the treatment and prevention arena, fear, ignorance and discrimination, in its worst forms, including abusive treatment and violence, remain in a number of countries.

According to data collected, more than half of people living with HIV in Zambia reported having been verbally abused as a result of their HIV status.

One in five people living with HIV in Nigeria and Ethiopia reported feeling suicidal.

In Nigeria, more than one in five people living with HIV said they had been denied health services as a result of their HIV infection.

According to a nine-country study by the International Labour Organisation and the Global Network of People Living with HIV, the percentage of people living with HIV who reported discriminatory attitudes among employers ranged from 8 percent in Estonia to 54 percent in Malaysia.

As of 2012, about 60 countries have adopted laws that specifically criminalise HIV transmission, with about 600 convictions reported in 24 countries.

According to a 2012 global review, more than 40 percent of UN member states (78 of 193 countries) criminalise same-sex relations, with some jurisdictions permitting the imposition of the death penalty for convictions under such laws.

Laws deeming some aspects of sex work to be illegal are in place in the majority of countries and are often used to justify harassment, extortion and violence against sex workers by police and clients, placing them at increased risk of HIV infection.

Some countries have reformed laws to decriminalise key populations at higher risk – Portugal decriminalised drug possession and use in 2000, while New Zealand adopted the Prostitution Reform Act 2003 that decriminalised sex work.

The report praised South Africa for its declines in the number of children newly infected with HIV, with its substantial drop of between 40 and 59 percent from the years 2009 to 2011.

According to the report, 330 000 children were infected with the virus in 2011, almost halving the rate since 2003, when almost 600 000 children were infected with HIV.

Worldwide, the number of people newly infected continues to fall.

The number of people (adults and children) acquiring HIV infection in 2011 (2.5 million) was 20 percent lower than in 2001.

In 39 countries, the incidence of HIV infection among adults fell by more than 25 percent from 2001 to 2011.

Twenty-three of the countries with steep declines in HIV incidence are in sub-Saharan Africa, where the number of people acquiring HIV infection in 2011 (1.8 million) was 25 percent lower than in 2001 (2.4 million).